Silent Mercy

THIRTY-FOUR

“IS there a credit on that photograph?” I asked.

“I printed out a copy for each of you,” Max said. “No credit listed.”

“Whoever took this picture must have other snaps from that night. Call the newspaper, pronto.”

She nodded at me and walked to the corner of the room with her cell in hand.

“Was he wearing a clerical collar?” I asked Mercer.

“The stage manager couldn’t recall another thing about him except sunglasses, even though it was indoors, at nighttime.”

“If he really has no eyebrows, then maybe the frames of the glasses conceal that. Maybe it’s why he wears them.”

“I want Daniel Gersh,” Mike said. “I’ll call Peterson and tell him to send somebody over to the offices of Local One.”

“What’s Local One?” Nan asked.

“IATSE. International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. The stagehand’s union,” Mike stood up to speed-dial the lieutenant and started pacing. “Someone will know if that scab is still working in this town.”

I took notes while Mike talked.

“Loo? We need a guy over at Local One. Yeah. It’s on West Forty-Sixth off Tenth. See if the Gersh kid has signed up there. See if anyone can help us hunt him down.”

“But if he didn’t join the union—” I started to say.

“But if he did, Coop, they’ll have him. They do scenery, sound, and light for every show in town, from Radio City to the Met, Broadway to network television.”

Mike and Mercer were meticulous about the need to run down every lead.

“You, Coop, you need to call the kid’s stepfather.”

“I’m the last one he’ll want to hear from — a sex crimes prosecutor. I’m sure Daniel has confronted him by now about the pictures of him in bed with Naomi.”

“Then call the mother, okay? Worm some information out of her. Tell her that her boy is likely to get hurt if she doesn’t help us find him. What else?”

I fished through my notes to find the name of the suburban Illinois town to get to work on reaching Daniel Gersh’s mother.

“I’m tracking the guy from Highway Patrol,” Nan said. “Every precinct in the city turned out on the day shift with orders this morning to look for abandoned trucks as possible crime scenes. They’re doing stops at the bridges and tunnels too. He’ll check in on the hour.”

“Good.”

I was in another corner of the room, dialing Information for Lanny Bellin, Daniel’s stepfather. The robot that helped me get the number offered to connect me at no extra charge.

“Hello? Hello, Mrs. Bellin? I’m calling about your son, Daniel. My name is Alexandra Cooper, and I’m a lawyer—”

The line went dead.

“You got a machine?”

“No, I got distinctly hung up on.”

“Get the local cops to her house,” Mike said.

I dialed the area code again, asking for the nonemergency police number and explained our situation to the detective on duty. “He doesn’t know the family,” I said. “But he has my number and they’ll get someone to do it as fast as possible.”

Mike knew how close Mercer was to his minister, who had helped counsel him through a horrendous period after he had been shot by a deranged killer. “Can you call your preacher man and see what he knows about these far-out Pentecostals — these extreme ministries that Faith told Coop and me about this morning?”

“On it.”

Nan was glued to her laptop. “I don’t know if this is anything, but I’m following up on Sergeant Chirico’s body count.”

“Murders in other jurisdictions?” I asked.

“Yes. Pastors, priests, ministers. There are more of these than you’d think.”

“What have you got in the last six months, maybe a year?”

“Tennessee. A minister shot to death by his wife in the parsonage.”

“Not ours.”

“A nun strangled and raped in Baltimore.”

“Solved?” Mike asked.

“No, but appears to be in the course of a burglary.”

“Well, say a prayer for her, everybody. Doesn’t sound like our boy.”

“Here’s a love triangle in Texas,” Nan said. “A pastor hired his own son to kill his wife — the killer’s stepmother. The son’s still on the loose.”

“Cause of death?” Mike asked. He was restless and itching to break through to a solution.

“She was drugged. Then suffocated with a pillow, to look like an accidental overdose.”

“I’ll take the drugging part of it. Our vics must have been drugged to be moved to the killing ground. But accidental isn’t his style.”

“Okay. This next one had me at the headline, but wrong gender. Skip it.”

“Read,” Mike said.

“ ‘ Community Grieves Slain Pastor.’ It goes on to say that he was found inside the large church building — a converted warehouse — his throat slit—”

All of us stopped at those three words and gave our complete attention to Nan. She was cherry-picking phrases from the story. “No known motive. No suspects. Parishioners being questioned.”

“What kind of church?” Mike was running fingers through his hair and barking questions.

“Pentecostal. Happened last November.”

“Any ’scrip of the kind of Pentecostal? Anything about extreme?”

“I’m reading as fast as I can, Mike. I don’t see anything like that.”

“Where’d this go down?”

“The town is called Alpharetta.”

“It’s right outside of Atlanta,” I said.

“Details?”

Nan was pulling the follow-up story. “Beloved pastor. Eleven years at the church,” she said, taking a breath. “Whoops. Some think the killing may be connected to the fact that he just came out to his congregation a month ago. He’s gay. Wanted them to accept it, to welcome his longtime partner. Wanted to continue to serve. Split the community, to put it mildly.”

“There’s your outcast,” I said. “There’s your pariah.”

“Does it say anything about how he was dressed?” Mike asked.

“Fully clothed. Except for his collar.”

Maybe the killer wanted a trophy from his victim, a collar of his own. Maybe he wore it to the courthouse to watch Bishop Deegan testify. Maybe he used it to approach his trusting victims, knowing the simple clerical vestment would disarm them.

“One of the worshippers speculates the killer must have wanted the poor man defrocked.”

“Silenced,” Mike said. “Defrocked and silenced. That’s his signature, all right.”